Google!

Type:
Public (NASDAQ: GOOG), (LSE: GGEA)
Founded:
Menlo Park, California (September 27, 1998)
Headquarters:
Mountain View, California, USA
Key people:
Eric E. Schmidt, CEO/DirectorSergey Brin, Technology PresidentLarry E. Page, Products PresidentGeorge Reyes, CFO
Industry:
Internet
Products:
See list of Google services and tools
Revenue:
$6.138 Billion USD (2005)
Net income:
$1.465 Billion USD (2005)
Employees:
7,942 (June 30 2006)
Website:
http://www.google.com/

The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol," which refers to 10100 (a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros). Google has had a major impact on online culture. The verb "google" was recently added to both the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."

According to the Nielsen cabinet, Google is the most popular search engine on the web with a 54% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (23%) and MSN (13%). However, independent estimates from popular sites indicate that more than 80% of search referrals come from Google, with Yahoo! a distant second and MSN occupying barely 5%. It receives about a billion search requests per day.

Originally the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 14, 1997, and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company eventually amounted to almost US$1.1 million.

With Google's increased size comes more competition from large mainstream technology companies. One such example is the rivalry between Microsoft and Google. Microsoft has been touting its MSN Search engine, and more recently its Windows Live search in February, 2006, to counter Google's competitive position. Furthermore, the two companies are increasingly offering overlapping services, such as webmail (Gmail vs. Hotmail), search (both online and local desktop searching), and other applications (for example, Microsoft's Windows Live Local competes with Google Maps).

Some Criticisms
- A number of governments have raised concerns about the security risks posed by geographic details provided by Google Earth's satellite imaging
- Google's persistent cookie and other information collection practices have led to concerns over user privacy.

Google have a wide range of services and programs that include:
- Froogle
- Google Video,
- Google Earth
- Google Maps
- Gmail
- Google Groups
- Google SMS
- Google Talk
- And loads more…………….

Google April Fools
Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes - such as Google MentalPlex, which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web. In 2002, they claimed that pigeons were the secret behind their growing search engine. In 2004, they featured Google Lunar (which claimed to feature jobs on the moon) and in 2005, a fictitious brain-boosting drink, termed Google Gulp was announced. In 2006 they came up with Google Romance.

Future Plans
- On September 28, 2005, Google announced a long-term research partnership with NASA which would involve
- Time Warner's AOL unit and Google unveiled an expanded partnership on December 21, 2005, including an enhanced global advertising partnership and a $1 Billion investment by Google for a 5% stake in AOL.
- Additionally, Google has also recently formed a partnership with Sun Microsystems to help share and distribute each other's technologies.
- In August, 2006, Google signed a $900 million deal with News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media unit to provide search and advertising on MySpace and other News Corp.

In a 2006 report of the world's richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin was #26 with a net worth of $12.9 billion, and Larry Page was #27 with a net worth of $12.8 billion.

BBC Threatened With Legal Action

Jason Deans
Wednesday September 20, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk

Kevin Bond, one of the people featured in secret recordings in last night's Panorama special about corruption in football, is planning to take libel action against the BBC.

Bond, the Newcastle United first team coach, has instructed his lawyers, David Price Solicitors & Advocates, to begin legal proceedings over last night's BBC1 programme.

His solicitor, David Price, said Bond's comments had been "taken out of context and presented in a completely misleading manner".

Bond featured in secret recordings during the 60-minute undercover documentary, discussing the possibility of receiving payments relating to transfer deals from a proposed new company involving football agent Peter Harrison.

"My client will be taking proceedings for libel against the BBC over the programme and the media hype generated to publicise it," said Mr Price.

"The short extract from my client's conversation with the reporter was taken out of context and presented in a completely misleading manner. It was all smoke and mirrors," he added.

"It seems that my client was only included because, after one year of working on the programme, the producers were struggling to fill the one-hour slot."

Bond's lawyers wrote to the BBC before last night's 9pm Panorama broadcast, putting the corporation on notice that he would sue if the programme accused him directly of financial impropriety.

Summary
On Monday night BBC showed one of their most popular shows, 'Panorama'. It showed how football managers and agents have been offered bungs to get players into clubs illegally. Apparently this has been going on for a long time and in the last nine months of filming BBC have revealed everyones suspicions to be true. This article concentrated on Bond who is a Newcastle United representative and how he is planning to sue the BBC for thier actions. Another big name invovled is Boltons Manager, Sam Allerdyce who is also sueing the BBC. They're saying that BBC is completely put them out of context and showed them in a misleading manner.

This article and story raises awarness about football and in paticular transfers. These bungs and dealings are setting bad role models and giving the sport a bad name. Football is already being critisised due to match fixing in Italy. BBC are creating awarness to people that these illegal things are happening in football and this is a great way for BBC to gain lots of popularity. Although Sam Allerdyce and other footabll agents are taking legal action, the BBC had a great story and created awarness, so therefore also did its job as a public broadcaster.